It has been a while since I updated this blog.
Perhaps I will write a little bit to express how there has been a merging of 2 streams of Christian spirituality in my journey of practicing the presence of God.
When I first started to play the game with minutes (over 3 years ago), I was encouraged by imaginary companions (authors, who are mostly dead by now), who encouraged more of a "spiritual formation" approach to the presence of God. This approach to the presence of God included emphasis on being aware of disciplining one's thoughts to habitually meditate on godly thoughts as well as God himself, memorizing and meditating on Bible verses, being conscious in performing everyday acts (such as washing dishes, waiting in lines in public, and even the physical act of walking) by willing them to be done for the glory of God while I did them. This stream emphasized "putting on the new self" of Christlike character through discipline in one's mind and will primarily. It emphasized virtuous habits through intelligent and informed spiritual training. In a way, it focused on the "fruit of the Spirit" which has more to do with one's character. The fruits (pun intended) of this approach to being in tune with God's presence include having more of the inner peace of God, being more still, calm in his presence, and growing in one's character/virtues.
This first approach towards Christian spirituality characterized approximately the first 2 years of me playing the game with minutes.
The second approach to God's presence, however, has a different emphasis. It is not contradictory or opposed to the first. It's just, different. It has to do with the charismatic power, enabling, signs and wonders of the Holy Spirit. This involves experiences in one's "inner world" that get confirmed externally in the outside world. Physical body parts getting healed from experiencing the presence (and specific guidance/leading) of the Holy Spirit. Laying hands on someone and praying for them and the recipient feeling significantly hot physical heat (a physical manifestation of the Holy Spirit's presence) in the area where a hand is layed upon. Getting "mysterious vibes" about what's going on in people's hearts, and... being correct about it by confirming the vibes with them afterwards. This aspect of God's presence, to sum it up, involves the emphasis of the (blatantly supernatural) charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is sensing, using, and seeing the effects of the "divine electrical current" of the powerful presence of God through his Holy Spirit in you. It is the type of stuff that one reads about in the book of Acts. Except, it happens right in front of your eyes. Maybe not every single day. But more than once every month. Those are the "big things". As for the "mini-things" of this nature, it seems to be happening on a weekly basis.
The second approach has really influenced my experience of God's presence in a good way. For God is so big, and having the full gamut of biblically informed experiences of God cannot be put into a box. There is so much more to communing with God in his presence than what our own little denominations can teach us individually. I am sure that Christians on each continent of the earth can teach us new sides to engaging in biblically informed experiences of the God of the Bible. And I am open to learning from them, whether they are from Russia, China, Korea, Africa, South America, and even in the States just south of the border.
I am extremely grateful to God for both of these streams of Christian spirituality, both of which come out of a rich heritage of experiencing God.
Blending these 2 streams, in a way, is integrating the character of Christ with the power of Christ. Both are crucial in becoming more Christlike. It is basically the integration of the fruit of the Spirit with the gifts of the Spirit in being aware of God's presence. This God is the God who provides both the fruit as well as the gifts of the Spirit through his Holy Spirit.
One specific way these 2 are being interlocked in my present experience is through hearing the voice of God speak specifically about persons, situations, as well as myself. This is not mere self-reminders of central core Christian doctrines. This is about hearing freshly live words spoken by God. This, metaphorically speaking, is not a person simply giving themselves self-reminders of how much their significant other loves them in times of insecurity. This is like the significant other hearing freshly spoken and live words from their significant other that they love them.
Live words spoken by a living, breathing person are powerful. This is the case for humans, but is much more so the case for a living, breathing God speaking to humans in live broadcast.
The effect has been somewhat like a Jedi-Knight learning how to wield a lightsaber.
In order for a Jedi-Knight to effectively wield a lightsaber against his enemies, he must engage in consistent and long-term training and discipline with his physical body in being flexible, agile, and strong. Just holding the lightsaber still, as powerful as it is in and of itself, will not kill one's enemies in battle. He must train his body's reflexes, reaction time, and automatic coordinated responses in physical combat. However, if all he has is this physically trained conditioning but wields a lightsaber that can't turn on, or just uses a stick in its place, he will not be that powerful. Better yet, he will not be able to defend himself against an enemy using another lightsaber attacking him. It takes a lightsaber to make one's defense solid (pun intended) against another lightsaber (as well as reflect lasers shot out of laser guns). Fire verses fire. Anything else used to block an enemy's lightsaber (one's arm, a wooden stick, even a steel bar) will just simply be sliced through. The same goes with the spiritual realm. If demons attack us spiritually, only having virtuous habits trained, disciplined, and internalized in oneself may not be sufficient in all spiritual battles. It takes spiritual power to fight spiritual power. And the intensity of one's lightsaber, for the Charismatic Christian, intensifies over time as one grows in the power of the Holy Spirit.
In short, both are needed. The physical skills to adeptly wield a lightsaber (spiritual formation/spiritual disciplines such as memorization and meditation on scripture, fasting, solitude, silence, unceasing prayer) need to be combined with... well.. a lightsaber.
I truly believe that the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any double edged sword (Hebrews 4:12) because... it is like a lightsaber. One can metaphorically feel it buzzing when the Holy Spirit energizes certain timely needed verses with divine electricity to combat the negative spiritual electricity that the enemy attacks one with. And God's power is always more powerful than Satan's.
Frequently, God helps me out with this "lightsaber" in 2 major ways. 2 consistent struggles I have (which I have learned would never be overcome without God's practical help) are:
1)caring about the opinions of other people
2)worrying about the future
Now, when I am attacked with feeling insecure about what others think of me, I can recite verses about my identity in Christ to try to combat them, and try to discipline my thoughts, which helps to some degree. However, sometimes, honestly speaking, it feels like I'm using these things somewhat like a Jedi-Knight wielding a wooden stick in battle. However, as I am learning how to engage in spiritual lightsaber dueling, I am sensing the power of God's freshly spoken words, much like the buzzing of a lightsaber, and using those prophetically spoken words in spiritual battle to cut the lies of the enemy, much like a lightsaber cuts through a metal sword. Practically speaking, some samples of freshly spoken words from God include things such as my spirit sensing God saying to me (through live spiritual broadcast) "Chris, don't worry about what others think." "Chris, only my opinion matters." "Chris, I love you so much beyond what you imagine." These words, if I just remind myself of them in my own mind, have limited effect. If God speaks them live however, that's lightsaber baby.
The same goes with spiritual attacks of doubt that tempt me to worry about my future.
Thank you God.
Life is hard, but God is good through enabling us to experience his presence through the life, death, and resurrection of his son Jesus, accessed through the Holy Spirit.
Thank you for blending the character and power of Christ in me more and more God. Thank you for guiding me in seeking the fruit of the Spirit and gifts of the Spirit in tandem without only pursuing one.
Gosh, this life is really bearable with this stuff!
Monday, June 4, 2012
Sunday, December 11, 2011
An unexpected dimension to the journey: specific messages from God
It's been a long while since I updated this. And a lot has happened in my journey of training and improving in practicing God's presence so that one day I'll be able to effortlessly be aware of God's presence every minute of my awake hours, whether it be eating meals with friends, reading textbooks, giving a speech in front of others, at a wedding, reading books, or writing a paper.
By God's grace, I have been improving more and more every month overall. I seriously cannot remember the last time that I forgot to commune with God's presence for an hour. Perhaps it has been over a year since I had an hour that was free of God's presence. God is good.
*edit, upon more extended reflection, I recognize that it would probably be more accurate to say that around 95% of my awake hours I am aware of God's presence at least once. Although I do find it very hard to recall a specific awake hour where I forgot about God's presence, they probably do happen from time to time.*
God's presence is actually becoming more and more desirable too. Because frankly speaking, there were moments at the beginning of this journey where I honestly didn't desire God's presence and that it would "get in the way" of whatever I was doing (watching TV, socializing, reading etc.). But now God's presence is becoming more and more desirable, not only so that I am aware of his presence more often throughout the day, but that I feel like something's missing when I don't remember. It feels like I'm "spiritually naked" without the clothing of God's presence in my consciousness.
But there has been one major surprise throughout this whole journey in addition to my improvement in the percentage of minutes throughout the day that I remember to practice God's presence. I have actually started to develop a level of intimacy with God where I am actually receiving very specific messages from God about things, myself, others, the future etc. It is insane. I can say that 8 months ago, I would have never dreamed of experiencing this with God. I realize that it is a gift, and that I have to cultivate it and sharpen it. So the process of sharpening it has given me the feeling of X-men first-class training music.
I say once again, that before, I never would have dreamed of experiencing this at least on a regular basis with God. I mean, I didn't doubt that there were some very privileged few individuals who for some reason heard God say to them very specific things regularly. But I thought that those were a select privileged few, and that "that was just how God spoke to them", but not to me. I grew up Baptist. I thought that God would only speak to me through letter of the Scriptures or through wise advice from wise counsel from wise friends. And if I felt some vague desire to do something for God and it didn't contradict the Scriptures, then that emotional impression may have been from God. But that was pretty much it. And since it was very seldom where I received specific messages from God, I thought that this was pretty much going to be how I were to interact with God for the majority of the rest of my life on earth with some rare exceptional moments once every few years or so.
Now, things have changed. Starting spring of this year, God has started to speak to me through my dreams. And starting early September of this year, God has been telling me very specific messages about myself and others during my awake hours! And I'm not talking about me just reminding myself of Orthodox Christian doctrine in my mind. That stuff is general. True, but general. I'm talking about specific specific. Unbelievable for a Baptist!
I'll give some examples of some cool stories that have happened within the past few months. I can't share all the stories for reasons of confidentiality for others' personal stuff. But I can share some. Also, the reason why I think God is giving me these messages about others is because he wants me to encourage others specifically and pray for them specifically as well. My reasoning for this is that the stuff that I (and others) have gotten has been really specific many times, and many (not all, but most) of the times the message was accurate and true about the person's life. So it definitely isn't just my "own reasoning" based off of the subconscious reading of the recipient of the messages. So it has to be from some spiritual being/source. And I think that if it is in line with teachings/principles of Scripture, and others feel encouraged/edified, then I see no reason why the devil would want to give me those messages so that I could encourage and pray for them in Christ in a specific manner. If others are encouraged and prayed for with regards to pursuing intimacy with God and spiritual fruit comes out from it and the message is in line with Scriptures, then I think that it's a message from God.
Also, some of these examples are incidences where I was the recipient of these specific messages.
So without further adieu, here are some random examples of God giving a friend or myself some specific messages this semester:
1) During the middle of the semester, for a couple of days I was really, I mean REALLY identifying with Abraham of the Old Testament. Specifically how he got specific promises from God that were huge, but for a long time he didn't see any evidence of them being fulfilled and just had to continue believing in faith. I felt the same way with God giving me specific huge promises in the past through multiple prophets who didn't know each other but who nevertheless independently prophesied consistent/matching things about the same promises of God to me.
So my friend Bobby and I were trying to sit still and listen to the voice of God for any messages the Holy Spirit had for us to encourage/edify each other with. So we sat in silence. Then all of a sudden, Bobby says "gUmmI, you're like Abraham." And elaborates on how I relate to Abraham and the promises given to him by God! I didn't tell Bobby anything about how I was totally relating to Abraham the last few days! Crazy! Bobby said that since it came coming back to his heart/mind multiple times, he felt he just had to say it to me. wow.
2) So I was in one of my classes at Tyndale in the beginning where there were a few minutes before the professor started lecturing and people had time to just relax/unwind/chat etc. I sat beside a person who I've only talked to very briefly once before (I knew absolutely nothing about his personal life). I figured I might as well just listen to God and ask God if he had any message for this guy beside me. So I sit in silence and try to listen to the voice of God. Then, I hear in my inner hear "this guy's struggling". So I'm like, okay... everyone's struggling with something. Could you be a little more specific God? "This guy's feeling a lot of pressure from school." I'm like.. that's pretty specific. Is that really from you God?
So I figured I might as well ask him in a non-sketchy way to test it out. So I asked him seemingly out of the blue, "are you feeling a lot of pressure from school?". You should have seen his eyes light up in an instant, along with his his mouth give an emphatic "*pfff* Yea!". In my mind I was like holy crap! Then I told him that I thought God told me that, and then I offered to pray for him and he let me pray for him.
3) So one day I got my haircut and because the barber's tools weren't clean, the back of my head got a small infection/inflammation where the skin inflated just a little. It was very minor, but there nonetheless. But I was hoping that it didn't turn into something bigger, so I asked some brothers to lay hands on me and pray for me. They did. Then afterwards, I don't know how to fully describe it, I felt some sort of "holy presence"/metaphorical "light" at the back of my head in that area. It coincided with a gradual healing. Hard to describe, but I felt it there nonetheless.
So then a couple days later, I was with a friend of mine doing a listening to the voice of God experiment and after a few minutes of quietness, he says to me "I'm getting an image of a light at the back of your head". it was in the exact place where there was the infection/inflammation and the "holy light" after the healing prayer. I didn't tell him jack about this post-haircut infection! Crazy!
4) So one day several of my friends (maybe 8 or so) are in a prayer meeting where we're praying for each others' churches. The catch was that we didn't tell each other what the prayer requests for our churches were. I challenged each of us to spend 3-4 minutes in quietness/stillness and listen to the Holy Spirit and what He had to say to the church. So, I write what I think I got for each churches. Pretty much for almost all of them I knew absolutely nothing about their churches. Jack. So I get to one of my friend's churches, and when I listen to the voice of God, all of a sudden I hear "This church is being bread and light to the community. I am so pleased that they are making such a huge impact in their community and I want them to keep up the good work in their community." Although I didn't know anything about the church, since I thought I heard that from God I wrote it down.
At the end when some of us shared what was written down for our churches, the friend of that church that I got this message for said that their church was actually really involved in the community! She said that they were helping out with operation christmas child, helping out with renovating the foodbank building, and even helping blind people play tennis!
5) So me and 2 other sisters were listening to God together to see what he would say to us through each other. When it came to one of the girls, I thought God told me that "She has a passion for children, and she's going to shepherd the children and raise them up in the way of Christ". Now, I don't know this girl that well, and as far as I know, she's never told me that she had a passion for children. I had absolutely no idea. So I asked her in faith "do you have a passion for children?" She said "yes" (turns out that this passion only started about 2 years ago). And so I told her what I heard from God to encourage her.
It has been a thrilling journey. I never knew this would be possible at least to this degree a year ago. These examples listed have just been a sample of what now goes on on a weekly basis in my life now. Amazing.
By God's grace, I have been improving more and more every month overall. I seriously cannot remember the last time that I forgot to commune with God's presence for an hour. Perhaps it has been over a year since I had an hour that was free of God's presence. God is good.
*edit, upon more extended reflection, I recognize that it would probably be more accurate to say that around 95% of my awake hours I am aware of God's presence at least once. Although I do find it very hard to recall a specific awake hour where I forgot about God's presence, they probably do happen from time to time.*
God's presence is actually becoming more and more desirable too. Because frankly speaking, there were moments at the beginning of this journey where I honestly didn't desire God's presence and that it would "get in the way" of whatever I was doing (watching TV, socializing, reading etc.). But now God's presence is becoming more and more desirable, not only so that I am aware of his presence more often throughout the day, but that I feel like something's missing when I don't remember. It feels like I'm "spiritually naked" without the clothing of God's presence in my consciousness.
But there has been one major surprise throughout this whole journey in addition to my improvement in the percentage of minutes throughout the day that I remember to practice God's presence. I have actually started to develop a level of intimacy with God where I am actually receiving very specific messages from God about things, myself, others, the future etc. It is insane. I can say that 8 months ago, I would have never dreamed of experiencing this with God. I realize that it is a gift, and that I have to cultivate it and sharpen it. So the process of sharpening it has given me the feeling of X-men first-class training music.
I say once again, that before, I never would have dreamed of experiencing this at least on a regular basis with God. I mean, I didn't doubt that there were some very privileged few individuals who for some reason heard God say to them very specific things regularly. But I thought that those were a select privileged few, and that "that was just how God spoke to them", but not to me. I grew up Baptist. I thought that God would only speak to me through letter of the Scriptures or through wise advice from wise counsel from wise friends. And if I felt some vague desire to do something for God and it didn't contradict the Scriptures, then that emotional impression may have been from God. But that was pretty much it. And since it was very seldom where I received specific messages from God, I thought that this was pretty much going to be how I were to interact with God for the majority of the rest of my life on earth with some rare exceptional moments once every few years or so.
Now, things have changed. Starting spring of this year, God has started to speak to me through my dreams. And starting early September of this year, God has been telling me very specific messages about myself and others during my awake hours! And I'm not talking about me just reminding myself of Orthodox Christian doctrine in my mind. That stuff is general. True, but general. I'm talking about specific specific. Unbelievable for a Baptist!
I'll give some examples of some cool stories that have happened within the past few months. I can't share all the stories for reasons of confidentiality for others' personal stuff. But I can share some. Also, the reason why I think God is giving me these messages about others is because he wants me to encourage others specifically and pray for them specifically as well. My reasoning for this is that the stuff that I (and others) have gotten has been really specific many times, and many (not all, but most) of the times the message was accurate and true about the person's life. So it definitely isn't just my "own reasoning" based off of the subconscious reading of the recipient of the messages. So it has to be from some spiritual being/source. And I think that if it is in line with teachings/principles of Scripture, and others feel encouraged/edified, then I see no reason why the devil would want to give me those messages so that I could encourage and pray for them in Christ in a specific manner. If others are encouraged and prayed for with regards to pursuing intimacy with God and spiritual fruit comes out from it and the message is in line with Scriptures, then I think that it's a message from God.
Also, some of these examples are incidences where I was the recipient of these specific messages.
So without further adieu, here are some random examples of God giving a friend or myself some specific messages this semester:
1) During the middle of the semester, for a couple of days I was really, I mean REALLY identifying with Abraham of the Old Testament. Specifically how he got specific promises from God that were huge, but for a long time he didn't see any evidence of them being fulfilled and just had to continue believing in faith. I felt the same way with God giving me specific huge promises in the past through multiple prophets who didn't know each other but who nevertheless independently prophesied consistent/matching things about the same promises of God to me.
So my friend Bobby and I were trying to sit still and listen to the voice of God for any messages the Holy Spirit had for us to encourage/edify each other with. So we sat in silence. Then all of a sudden, Bobby says "gUmmI, you're like Abraham." And elaborates on how I relate to Abraham and the promises given to him by God! I didn't tell Bobby anything about how I was totally relating to Abraham the last few days! Crazy! Bobby said that since it came coming back to his heart/mind multiple times, he felt he just had to say it to me. wow.
2) So I was in one of my classes at Tyndale in the beginning where there were a few minutes before the professor started lecturing and people had time to just relax/unwind/chat etc. I sat beside a person who I've only talked to very briefly once before (I knew absolutely nothing about his personal life). I figured I might as well just listen to God and ask God if he had any message for this guy beside me. So I sit in silence and try to listen to the voice of God. Then, I hear in my inner hear "this guy's struggling". So I'm like, okay... everyone's struggling with something. Could you be a little more specific God? "This guy's feeling a lot of pressure from school." I'm like.. that's pretty specific. Is that really from you God?
So I figured I might as well ask him in a non-sketchy way to test it out. So I asked him seemingly out of the blue, "are you feeling a lot of pressure from school?". You should have seen his eyes light up in an instant, along with his his mouth give an emphatic "*pfff* Yea!". In my mind I was like holy crap! Then I told him that I thought God told me that, and then I offered to pray for him and he let me pray for him.
3) So one day I got my haircut and because the barber's tools weren't clean, the back of my head got a small infection/inflammation where the skin inflated just a little. It was very minor, but there nonetheless. But I was hoping that it didn't turn into something bigger, so I asked some brothers to lay hands on me and pray for me. They did. Then afterwards, I don't know how to fully describe it, I felt some sort of "holy presence"/metaphorical "light" at the back of my head in that area. It coincided with a gradual healing. Hard to describe, but I felt it there nonetheless.
So then a couple days later, I was with a friend of mine doing a listening to the voice of God experiment and after a few minutes of quietness, he says to me "I'm getting an image of a light at the back of your head". it was in the exact place where there was the infection/inflammation and the "holy light" after the healing prayer. I didn't tell him jack about this post-haircut infection! Crazy!
4) So one day several of my friends (maybe 8 or so) are in a prayer meeting where we're praying for each others' churches. The catch was that we didn't tell each other what the prayer requests for our churches were. I challenged each of us to spend 3-4 minutes in quietness/stillness and listen to the Holy Spirit and what He had to say to the church. So, I write what I think I got for each churches. Pretty much for almost all of them I knew absolutely nothing about their churches. Jack. So I get to one of my friend's churches, and when I listen to the voice of God, all of a sudden I hear "This church is being bread and light to the community. I am so pleased that they are making such a huge impact in their community and I want them to keep up the good work in their community." Although I didn't know anything about the church, since I thought I heard that from God I wrote it down.
At the end when some of us shared what was written down for our churches, the friend of that church that I got this message for said that their church was actually really involved in the community! She said that they were helping out with operation christmas child, helping out with renovating the foodbank building, and even helping blind people play tennis!
5) So me and 2 other sisters were listening to God together to see what he would say to us through each other. When it came to one of the girls, I thought God told me that "She has a passion for children, and she's going to shepherd the children and raise them up in the way of Christ". Now, I don't know this girl that well, and as far as I know, she's never told me that she had a passion for children. I had absolutely no idea. So I asked her in faith "do you have a passion for children?" She said "yes" (turns out that this passion only started about 2 years ago). And so I told her what I heard from God to encourage her.
It has been a thrilling journey. I never knew this would be possible at least to this degree a year ago. These examples listed have just been a sample of what now goes on on a weekly basis in my life now. Amazing.
Friday, April 29, 2011
"NDP 34%"
"NDP 34%"
God? What did you mean by that last night? The thought sure came from you and not from me.
God? What did you mean by that last night? The thought sure came from you and not from me.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
existential distinction between the presence of different members of the Trinity
This may sound controversial, as a lot of things written in this blog, but I guess I'll just say it.
I think I'm growing in the discipline of practicing the presence of God up to the point where I think I can existentially distinguish the between the presence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in my consciousness! Of course I knew all the fundamental doctrines of the Trinity, all 3 members being God, all being distinct in personality, yet all having the divine traits in the one substance of God. But for a lot of my life, this theology was all abstract to me. And during this journey of the Game with Minutes, I'm actually learning to rectify the centuries-old mistake of protestants of separating theological understanding with personal spiritual experience. That's why I like a lot of the medieval Catholic writers, to a lot of them, like Madame Guyon and St. Teresa of Avlia, when they write, they don't separate theological doctrine from their personal experience on their spiritual journey. To use a modern analogy, they don't research decades on a prospective romantic partner's background while they spending very little time dating him/her. They "date" and learn about that partner at the same time. Not the best analogy, but that's how it is with a lot of these Catholic mystics.
Anyways, all that to say, I think within my consciousness, I am learning to practically distinguish between directly interacting with the Holy Spirit, Jesus, and the Father. It's kind of cool too, rather than just vaguely knowing that all 3 of them are God and ambiguously communicating to "all 3 of them at the same time and somehow it works out".
Once again, this is extremely hard to describe as to what it actually feels like, so forgive me if I have to resort to using analogies. First of all, the presence of God has been becoming more and more real to me. Picture someone who has lived indoor all their lives and was born blind. Then picture this person constantly being told what the sun is like. The various characteristics of it, how it heats you up if you're in it's presence, how it's so bright it can make you go blind if you look at it directly for an extended period of time, how it helps your body produce vitamin D if you're exposed to it, how you can get a suntan if you're exposed to it for a long period of time. Then, picture this person finally walking out one day when he's 25 years old into the outdoor beach on a bright sunny day. He's still blind, he still can't see the sun. But something in his educated intuition feels like he's being exposed directly in the presence of it. He feels like he's being warmed up by it's heat. He feels like it's "brighter" even though he's blind and can't see properly. His friends tell him after he's been in the sun for a while that they can see a suntan on his skin. He KNOWS that he's directly in the presence of the sun even though he can't prove directly, or can't see it directly. But he knows it's there. That's how it's been with me and God's presence metaphorically.
And now, with the distinction of the different members of the Trinity in my consciousness. Picture a blind alien who has never been to planet earth before. Picture this blind alien who has never been exposed to H20 (aka water) before. But this blind alien has heard about it, all its properties, its effects, its possible states (liquid, solid [ice], gas). But one day, this blind alien gets transported to earth, and he begins to feel with his 4 senses the difference between water in liquid form, solid form, and gas form. Although he can't see the difference of these forms in his eyes, he nevertheless knows that it's all H20 and can sense the difference. That is a little like how it feels right now.
And it's pretty cool man, to be able to experience the subjective textures of first-person consciousness in interacting with different members of the Trinity. They really are distinct persons of a holy community that interact with each other, and are not clones of each other, or divine siamese triplets or something. Of course we might know this in our head. But experiencing it is a whole new universe.
I think I'm growing in the discipline of practicing the presence of God up to the point where I think I can existentially distinguish the between the presence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in my consciousness! Of course I knew all the fundamental doctrines of the Trinity, all 3 members being God, all being distinct in personality, yet all having the divine traits in the one substance of God. But for a lot of my life, this theology was all abstract to me. And during this journey of the Game with Minutes, I'm actually learning to rectify the centuries-old mistake of protestants of separating theological understanding with personal spiritual experience. That's why I like a lot of the medieval Catholic writers, to a lot of them, like Madame Guyon and St. Teresa of Avlia, when they write, they don't separate theological doctrine from their personal experience on their spiritual journey. To use a modern analogy, they don't research decades on a prospective romantic partner's background while they spending very little time dating him/her. They "date" and learn about that partner at the same time. Not the best analogy, but that's how it is with a lot of these Catholic mystics.
Anyways, all that to say, I think within my consciousness, I am learning to practically distinguish between directly interacting with the Holy Spirit, Jesus, and the Father. It's kind of cool too, rather than just vaguely knowing that all 3 of them are God and ambiguously communicating to "all 3 of them at the same time and somehow it works out".
Once again, this is extremely hard to describe as to what it actually feels like, so forgive me if I have to resort to using analogies. First of all, the presence of God has been becoming more and more real to me. Picture someone who has lived indoor all their lives and was born blind. Then picture this person constantly being told what the sun is like. The various characteristics of it, how it heats you up if you're in it's presence, how it's so bright it can make you go blind if you look at it directly for an extended period of time, how it helps your body produce vitamin D if you're exposed to it, how you can get a suntan if you're exposed to it for a long period of time. Then, picture this person finally walking out one day when he's 25 years old into the outdoor beach on a bright sunny day. He's still blind, he still can't see the sun. But something in his educated intuition feels like he's being exposed directly in the presence of it. He feels like he's being warmed up by it's heat. He feels like it's "brighter" even though he's blind and can't see properly. His friends tell him after he's been in the sun for a while that they can see a suntan on his skin. He KNOWS that he's directly in the presence of the sun even though he can't prove directly, or can't see it directly. But he knows it's there. That's how it's been with me and God's presence metaphorically.
And now, with the distinction of the different members of the Trinity in my consciousness. Picture a blind alien who has never been to planet earth before. Picture this blind alien who has never been exposed to H20 (aka water) before. But this blind alien has heard about it, all its properties, its effects, its possible states (liquid, solid [ice], gas). But one day, this blind alien gets transported to earth, and he begins to feel with his 4 senses the difference between water in liquid form, solid form, and gas form. Although he can't see the difference of these forms in his eyes, he nevertheless knows that it's all H20 and can sense the difference. That is a little like how it feels right now.
And it's pretty cool man, to be able to experience the subjective textures of first-person consciousness in interacting with different members of the Trinity. They really are distinct persons of a holy community that interact with each other, and are not clones of each other, or divine siamese triplets or something. Of course we might know this in our head. But experiencing it is a whole new universe.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Happy 2nd year anniversary!
I distinctly remember exactly two years ago, when I first read the document "The Game with Minutes" by Frank Laubach and was so caught up with the passion/inspiration/vision to dedicate my life towards playing it. Call it a whim, call it juvenile idealism, call it sudden fanatical zeal or whatever you want to call it, I decided to count the cost, persevere, and engage in the journey of attempting to practice God's presence every single minute of my life.
After two years, I have no regrets at all for doing so. Yes, times in the journey have been hard, but there have been insights, revelations, changes in character, experiencing deeper dimensions of reality, resonating with the experiences of the new testament writers on a whole new level just to name a few of the outcomes of this experiment.
There's highs and lows in every life. No doubt about it. Whether it's a non-Christian's life, a lukewarm"Christian"'s life, or a die-hard disciple's life, all lives will have highs and lows. What's the difference then? I would argue the difference would be the depth of the lives. I would have to say that playing this game with minutes for two years has allowed me to enter into a deeper dimension of reality, another "world" so to speak. Not to evade this one, but to live through another world to influence and make effects on this one. It is like the difference between a "2D story" that has highs and lows (a cartoon movies in the 50s, let's say) and an Imax 3D-surround sound story that has highs and lows. There are just deeper dimensions that make the story all the more rich. Just like how a cat cannot understand the "world" of arithmetic or poetry, I believe the person who does not have a grasp on how to practice the presence of God cannot grasp the spiritual dimension of the Kingdom of God in a really tangible manner.
Right now, the best analogy I can use to describe these "two worlds" or "two dimensions of reality" is the Matrix trilogy. I think in the New Testament (and also parts of the Old, like the stories of Elijah and Elisha to name a couple of examples) we see a consistent theme of the die-hard disciples of Jesus "standing in another world and while standing there, having extraordinary effects on this one" in the words of Dallas Willard. It is exactly like the Matrix. Neo, Morpheus, Trinity and others who have "plugged" into the deeper reality of the Matrix by taking the red pill, have extraodinary effects on the "normal" world by being plugged in and operating in a deeper level of existence. For the Christian, this "deeper reality" that has effects on the "normal reality" is the Kingdom of God. With this framework, the Gospels and the book of Acts make a lot more sense and are seen in a whole different light!
"Unfortunately no one can be told what the Matrix is, you have to see it for yourself" - Morpheus
When I took the "red pill" of playing the Game with Minutes, I began to experience the "matrix" of the Kingdom of God in deeper ways than ever before two years ago.
The cool thing is, this journey tends to evolve. Just like how the storyline of Matrix evolves into its sequel Matrix reloaded, after the first "chapter" of my journey into the Matrix of the Kingdom of God a year and a half ago, I feel like a journeyer journeying into the original movie's sequel right now.
The first chapter that spanned a year and a half (lasting roughly until October 2010), revolved around me stepping into this new world/reality. After initially stepping into it, I realized weird things like never before. How certain things seemed to "defy" laws, and wondered how they did that, and just like how Neo had to be trained through Morpheus how to "fight with Kung fu" in the realm of the matrix, I felt that I had training on how to "fight with Kung fu" in the realm of the Matrix of the Kingdom of God, that had extraordinary effects on my physical behaviour in the "normal world" (by the way, I think this is the kind of character change Jesus was talking about by seeing "fruit" of righteousness as a by-product rather than aiming for it directly in the "normal world" absent of the Matrix of the Kingdom of God). So I discovered "agents" in this realm, which I could not overcome before. Afterr some training (although I am still far from perfect), I have learned to fight back, sometimes victorious through grace, sometimes failing. But regardless, I have learned somewhat how to walk, run, jump, kick, punch, do flips in this Matrix of the Kingdom of God. End of chapter 1.
Enter chapter 2 aka Matrix Reloaded. It all started with Andrew introducing me to the charismatics at Lifesprings church. Growing up Baptist, I had no exposure to prophetic stuff. But these guys are so epic in the Spirit! In Matrix Reloaded, Neo and others were on an adventure in pursuing a journey through following people who resembled people who have prophetic giftings in the Holy Spirit. Neo first sees "the seraph", then "the oracle", then "the keymaker", then "the architect". They edify, provide direction, open pathways that could not be opened without them, ask neo deep questions, challenging his secret struggles in his heart, and provide the "next step" for Neo's journey in "saving the world in the realm of the Matrix". This is exactly the "new stuff" that has been happening with me in this journey through the Matrix of the Kingdom of God. These prophetic brothers and sisters have been edifying me, confirming things in my heart, challenging me with secret struggles in my heart, providing mystical guidance, and helping me with the "next step" in redeeming Toronto not through the physical realm, but through the realm of the Matrix of the Kingdom of God. It's been nothing short of an RPG game. I feel like I don't even have to be addicted to drama shows, or RPG video games anymore. I'm in one.
What will happen next? Who knows.
Either way, I have no regrets at all taking the red pill, and wouldn't give it up for 5 million bucks (if I had it). Who knew that the Matrix of the Kingdom of God wasn't only available to the New Testament church/first couple centuries after that, but that it would be equally available to die-hard disciples of Jesus 2 millenia later?
“Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. ” - John 3:3
"Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.” - John 17:20-21
"For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" -Romans 14:17
The Kingdom of God is so like the Matrix as well as Matrix Reloaded.
After two years, I have no regrets at all for doing so. Yes, times in the journey have been hard, but there have been insights, revelations, changes in character, experiencing deeper dimensions of reality, resonating with the experiences of the new testament writers on a whole new level just to name a few of the outcomes of this experiment.
There's highs and lows in every life. No doubt about it. Whether it's a non-Christian's life, a lukewarm"Christian"'s life, or a die-hard disciple's life, all lives will have highs and lows. What's the difference then? I would argue the difference would be the depth of the lives. I would have to say that playing this game with minutes for two years has allowed me to enter into a deeper dimension of reality, another "world" so to speak. Not to evade this one, but to live through another world to influence and make effects on this one. It is like the difference between a "2D story" that has highs and lows (a cartoon movies in the 50s, let's say) and an Imax 3D-surround sound story that has highs and lows. There are just deeper dimensions that make the story all the more rich. Just like how a cat cannot understand the "world" of arithmetic or poetry, I believe the person who does not have a grasp on how to practice the presence of God cannot grasp the spiritual dimension of the Kingdom of God in a really tangible manner.
Right now, the best analogy I can use to describe these "two worlds" or "two dimensions of reality" is the Matrix trilogy. I think in the New Testament (and also parts of the Old, like the stories of Elijah and Elisha to name a couple of examples) we see a consistent theme of the die-hard disciples of Jesus "standing in another world and while standing there, having extraordinary effects on this one" in the words of Dallas Willard. It is exactly like the Matrix. Neo, Morpheus, Trinity and others who have "plugged" into the deeper reality of the Matrix by taking the red pill, have extraodinary effects on the "normal" world by being plugged in and operating in a deeper level of existence. For the Christian, this "deeper reality" that has effects on the "normal reality" is the Kingdom of God. With this framework, the Gospels and the book of Acts make a lot more sense and are seen in a whole different light!
"Unfortunately no one can be told what the Matrix is, you have to see it for yourself" - Morpheus
When I took the "red pill" of playing the Game with Minutes, I began to experience the "matrix" of the Kingdom of God in deeper ways than ever before two years ago.
The cool thing is, this journey tends to evolve. Just like how the storyline of Matrix evolves into its sequel Matrix reloaded, after the first "chapter" of my journey into the Matrix of the Kingdom of God a year and a half ago, I feel like a journeyer journeying into the original movie's sequel right now.
The first chapter that spanned a year and a half (lasting roughly until October 2010), revolved around me stepping into this new world/reality. After initially stepping into it, I realized weird things like never before. How certain things seemed to "defy" laws, and wondered how they did that, and just like how Neo had to be trained through Morpheus how to "fight with Kung fu" in the realm of the matrix, I felt that I had training on how to "fight with Kung fu" in the realm of the Matrix of the Kingdom of God, that had extraordinary effects on my physical behaviour in the "normal world" (by the way, I think this is the kind of character change Jesus was talking about by seeing "fruit" of righteousness as a by-product rather than aiming for it directly in the "normal world" absent of the Matrix of the Kingdom of God). So I discovered "agents" in this realm, which I could not overcome before. Afterr some training (although I am still far from perfect), I have learned to fight back, sometimes victorious through grace, sometimes failing. But regardless, I have learned somewhat how to walk, run, jump, kick, punch, do flips in this Matrix of the Kingdom of God. End of chapter 1.
Enter chapter 2 aka Matrix Reloaded. It all started with Andrew introducing me to the charismatics at Lifesprings church. Growing up Baptist, I had no exposure to prophetic stuff. But these guys are so epic in the Spirit! In Matrix Reloaded, Neo and others were on an adventure in pursuing a journey through following people who resembled people who have prophetic giftings in the Holy Spirit. Neo first sees "the seraph", then "the oracle", then "the keymaker", then "the architect". They edify, provide direction, open pathways that could not be opened without them, ask neo deep questions, challenging his secret struggles in his heart, and provide the "next step" for Neo's journey in "saving the world in the realm of the Matrix". This is exactly the "new stuff" that has been happening with me in this journey through the Matrix of the Kingdom of God. These prophetic brothers and sisters have been edifying me, confirming things in my heart, challenging me with secret struggles in my heart, providing mystical guidance, and helping me with the "next step" in redeeming Toronto not through the physical realm, but through the realm of the Matrix of the Kingdom of God. It's been nothing short of an RPG game. I feel like I don't even have to be addicted to drama shows, or RPG video games anymore. I'm in one.
What will happen next? Who knows.
Either way, I have no regrets at all taking the red pill, and wouldn't give it up for 5 million bucks (if I had it). Who knew that the Matrix of the Kingdom of God wasn't only available to the New Testament church/first couple centuries after that, but that it would be equally available to die-hard disciples of Jesus 2 millenia later?
“Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. ” - John 3:3
"Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.” - John 17:20-21
"For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" -Romans 14:17
The Kingdom of God is so like the Matrix as well as Matrix Reloaded.
Monday, December 13, 2010
extinguishing inappropriate laughter proving progress
Ever since I was young, I had a problem controlling my laughter when it was inappropriate to continue laughing hysterically. Not uncommonly, I'd be in a relatively formal meeting (e.g. committee meeting, emotional sharing, in a class) and something would trigger my laughter and I'd just die due to hysterical/uncontrollable laughter to the point of aching abs and teary eyes. It would be so embarrassing sometimes because I really wanted to stop, and all the others in the setting would look at me, some amused, some shocked, some frustrated, and hope that I would get my act together after a few seconds so that whatever serious social functions at hand could kindly continue their course. Their hope was for the most part disappointed as I would earnestly try to stop laughing, yet inevitably fail because I found something just so friggin funny. I would be successful for 2 seconds, then the laughter would just continue gorging itself out of my mouth and I would just frustratingly fail to suppress my laughter.
Yesterday, something interesting happened that incidentally was somewhat of an indicator that I have progressed deeper into the spiritual realm in Christ.
So what happened was that I was in Sunday School and I subjectively found something really funny (with the exception of a friend, no one else in the room found it funny). So, what typically happens in a situation like this with me is that I would just helplessly try my best to unsuccessfully suppress my laughter while the rest of the people beside me would just have to suck it up and bear this disease of mine. I started to laugh and try to control my external expressions of laughter to avoid disrupting the class. No use.
Then, all of a sudden a thought came into my head something along the lines of this:
"you have tried to "plug" this laughter at the relatively shallow surface of behaviour modification. Why don't you try to "plug" it at an even deeper level of your consciousness, the levels that you've reached through all these months of practising God's presence?"
Let me temporarily go off on a tangent and attempt to explain the background of that thought.
So after almost 21 months of trying to play the Game with Minutes, with the grace of the Holy Spirit combined with strenuous effort, I have, I feel, successfully learned and have been able to descend into deeper layers of my consciousness. I used to only be able to access my immediate thoughts/emotions before playing this game. Now, dare I say, I can access stuff that's deeper, such as my will (my volition, my faculty of decision making). This is the dimension of my humanity that Jesus was referring to when he was in the garden of Gethsemane and prayed to his father "not my will but let yours be done". This is a deeper layer of consciousness than Jesus' immediate thoughts and feelings.
This is extremely hard to explain to someone else on second hand terms. Basically because if someone's never experienced this dimension of their consciousness, they have absolutely nothing to relate to when an explanation is given to them to attempt to help them vicariously comprehend the nature of this unchartered territory of their consciousness. I mean, I only started to be able to consciously access this layer of my consciousness about 10 months after I played the Game with Minutes. Anyways, all I'm trying to say is that I am able to access a deeper level of consciousness that the average human being cannot (or isn't even aware of) and of which I could not access a year ago.
When I access this level of consciousness (or remember to, because a lot of the times I forget to), I existentially tell my will to submit to God's will. I have to say that this is different, although interconnected with act of disciplining my thoughts. And it is not just a one time thing. It is a dynamic, organic, ongoing thing that has to be done every minute (ideally that is. I am so far from this state, I figure it might take 9 more years for me to master it, maybe more).
So back to what happened yesterday during sunday school. After that thought came into my mind, I attempted to try to work on the level of "will" to change my will against "laughing hysterically when socially inappropriate to do so". Guess what? The hysterical laughter just extinguished. In a fraction of a second. Much like using a fire extinguisher on a fire. No gradual elimination, nor back-and-forth struggle. Just pure/permanent-like rapid extinction. I've never experienced something like that before in terms of controlling laughter when I wanted to.
I guess the incident showed me just how much direct/practical value in my daily life this Game with Minutes has in playing it.
That incident acted somewhat like a "spiritual barometer" to use an immediate situation to measure my practical mystical progress in Christ. I can control my hysterical laughter when I'm called to now! Although of course sometimes it's okay to laugh hysterically haha
Yesterday, something interesting happened that incidentally was somewhat of an indicator that I have progressed deeper into the spiritual realm in Christ.
So what happened was that I was in Sunday School and I subjectively found something really funny (with the exception of a friend, no one else in the room found it funny). So, what typically happens in a situation like this with me is that I would just helplessly try my best to unsuccessfully suppress my laughter while the rest of the people beside me would just have to suck it up and bear this disease of mine. I started to laugh and try to control my external expressions of laughter to avoid disrupting the class. No use.
Then, all of a sudden a thought came into my head something along the lines of this:
"you have tried to "plug" this laughter at the relatively shallow surface of behaviour modification. Why don't you try to "plug" it at an even deeper level of your consciousness, the levels that you've reached through all these months of practising God's presence?"
Let me temporarily go off on a tangent and attempt to explain the background of that thought.
So after almost 21 months of trying to play the Game with Minutes, with the grace of the Holy Spirit combined with strenuous effort, I have, I feel, successfully learned and have been able to descend into deeper layers of my consciousness. I used to only be able to access my immediate thoughts/emotions before playing this game. Now, dare I say, I can access stuff that's deeper, such as my will (my volition, my faculty of decision making). This is the dimension of my humanity that Jesus was referring to when he was in the garden of Gethsemane and prayed to his father "not my will but let yours be done". This is a deeper layer of consciousness than Jesus' immediate thoughts and feelings.
This is extremely hard to explain to someone else on second hand terms. Basically because if someone's never experienced this dimension of their consciousness, they have absolutely nothing to relate to when an explanation is given to them to attempt to help them vicariously comprehend the nature of this unchartered territory of their consciousness. I mean, I only started to be able to consciously access this layer of my consciousness about 10 months after I played the Game with Minutes. Anyways, all I'm trying to say is that I am able to access a deeper level of consciousness that the average human being cannot (or isn't even aware of) and of which I could not access a year ago.
When I access this level of consciousness (or remember to, because a lot of the times I forget to), I existentially tell my will to submit to God's will. I have to say that this is different, although interconnected with act of disciplining my thoughts. And it is not just a one time thing. It is a dynamic, organic, ongoing thing that has to be done every minute (ideally that is. I am so far from this state, I figure it might take 9 more years for me to master it, maybe more).
So back to what happened yesterday during sunday school. After that thought came into my mind, I attempted to try to work on the level of "will" to change my will against "laughing hysterically when socially inappropriate to do so". Guess what? The hysterical laughter just extinguished. In a fraction of a second. Much like using a fire extinguisher on a fire. No gradual elimination, nor back-and-forth struggle. Just pure/permanent-like rapid extinction. I've never experienced something like that before in terms of controlling laughter when I wanted to.
I guess the incident showed me just how much direct/practical value in my daily life this Game with Minutes has in playing it.
That incident acted somewhat like a "spiritual barometer" to use an immediate situation to measure my practical mystical progress in Christ. I can control my hysterical laughter when I'm called to now! Although of course sometimes it's okay to laugh hysterically haha
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
a divine conspiracy is going on
For the past two months or so, I sense something of a "divine conspiracy" going on as a result of attempting to play this game with minutes.
It is weird. Yet not that weird, since we see a "divine conspiracy" going on in the book of Acts. That is, for the Jesus-follower (by that I mean someone who has practically made it their #1 goal in life to become an apprentice of Jesus) the miraculous should be normative.
Frank Laubach, when he played this game, he noticed that God was "melting away obstacles" and making the road before him ever so smooth.
I am experiencing something similar. It feels something analogous to Magneto from X-men walking on a metal path, having pieces of metal fly a few feet right in front of his feet to continually extend his path as he walks.
As I trace how God has specifically "engineered" this path of mine in the past two years, especially the past two months, I can't help but to feel that although the odds seem stacked against the soldiers of Christ, the deck of cards is rigged, so that when Christ the dealer deals the cards, it seems almost obvious that there is order and a design/plan in the midst of seeming chaos, just like a piece of jazz music which is a piece of harmonious chaos. It seems that someone has "monkeyed" with how things unfolded. Something, or Someone is behind the scenes invisibly manipulating things in front of the curtain.
I am reading a book called "Kingdom Triangle" by J.P. Moreland now. In it, his main thesis is that the early church miraculously expanded (against all odds) through 3 main reasons on the part of the responsibility of Christians. They follow as:
1) They had a thoughtful Christian mind that defended legitimate knowledge of God (and not just "blind faith") and they articulated this stuff (what we'd call "Christian worldview" nowadays) to non-Christians in a respectful yet persuasive manner.
2) They engaged in spiritual formation to Christlikeness to actually produce no-nonsense Christlikeness through die-hard discipleship.
3) They acted out of expectation for the miraculous supernatural acts of the Holy Spirit (stuff in line with the stuff we see in Acts).
J.P. Moreland says that all over the world right now, Christianity is growing at rapid/unprecedented rates. Unfortunately, North America seems to be an exception to this trend. He believes that the Church of Jesus needs to revive all 3 points of the "Kingdom Triangle" to bring out revival to the Church in North America. I find myself strongly agreeing with Moreland on this one (let alone a lot of other things. I really respect this guy).
One of the ways that I feel God has arranged things to help equip me to help bring out city-wide revival to Toronto is to be equipped in multiple facets of the Christian life and to be balanced in growth. Balanced growth in multiple dimensions of Christlikeness is a big thing for me now. I don't want to neglect any significant aspect of Christlikeness in my walk with God.
So, with respect to the Kingdom Triangle, I feel that in all my 5 years of undergrad in Toronto, I really focused on establishing a solid Christian worldview and was equipped in defending it against secularism/atheism. However, I wasn't really that hot on spiritual formation. Come these past two years on East Asia STINT. I REALLY grew a ton in spiritual formation. I still have a lot to learn, but I feel that I have steady ground for my feet to advance on.
As for the 3rd point of the triangle, I feel that I am relatively weak with respect to Charismatic gifts and powers of the Holy Spirit. This is partially due to me being a Baptist where this stuff is hardly ever practiced. I don't fully blame the denomination. I mean there are some grounds to be cautious on the abuses of Charismatic gifts as well as distortions of weird theology on it. However, I think it is wrong for people like myself to think just because it has been misused and abused, that it can't bring out significant advances for the Kingdom if used properly. Afterall, if one just reads 1 Corinthians 14, one cannot deny that Paul was very "charismatic" without any apology. I hear things about how the charismatic/pentecostal denominations helped bring about some revivals in the 20th century. I can sort of see why. These guys have passion. They have fuel. They got zeal. The body of Christ needs its adrenaline (with balanced proportion).
Come the last few weeks. Within the last few weeks, I have started to attend this charismatic church called lifesprings. Their theology seems pretty sound, I haven't head any heresy or anything, and Andrew Tam recommended it, and I trust Andrew. I have really started to get exposed to this charismatic stuff.
I volunteered to participate in a "prophetic ministry" session a couple nights ago where 3 people experienced with the gift of prophecy prophecied on me together (they do this in groups of 3 ppl exercising the gift so that there's some sort of group accountability and that if two or more ppl feel consensus from the Holy Spirit, there's a higher chance of avoiding error).
I was very surprised. In a good way. I've never been prophecied on. These guys were telling me what the Holy Spirit was telling them in a supernatural way! I just met them 5 minutes beforehand without any previous conversation, just sat in silence in front of these 3, and they started saying stuff that's been deeply etched in my heart for the past while! This stuff I hardly tell anyone (not due to fear, but b/c no one asks). It's crazy! They were saying stuff like "I feel that X and Y is true about you." and they were right! It was also beyond any vague unfalsifiable descriptions. They kept on hitting dead on like they were on fire like Kobe or something. It was a little surreal at first. I had so many "HOW THE HECK DID YOU KNOW THAT ABOUT ME?" I even started laughing (out of my heart's disbelief of how prophetic they were). Hopefully they didn't find it rude, I mean I wasn't laughing at them, I was just laughing at the fact that they were just so dead on. I wasn't afraid of any dangerous heresy or anything, for everything they said was in accord with biblical principles (I felt). I also had some pretty astonishing/surprising prophecy about my future and stuff. Sort of intimidating and exciting if its going to come true.
All this to say, I feel like ever since I started to play this game, in general, I feel like I just entered an RPG where I'm aprt of a storyline that is already planned ahead of time, where events follow an intended pre-meditated plan by a storywriter, and I'm just in for the ride. This is exciting. The past few weeks have especially been the case as I reflect on the recent order of events that have fallen on my lap, with various serendipitous random "helpings" from friends who "just so happened" to help things unfold in a pattern (the pattern I experienced lately has been strengthening the second point of the triangle [spiritual formation] as well as being introduced to the third in a charismatic community [lifespring]).
The crazy part too is that when I went to the 1040 event featuring Jaeson Ma a few nights ago, all that city-wide revival for Toronto stuff I felt that God had independently put on my heart while I seemed all alone in East Asia. I mean, this was during the past two years before I was exposed to any of this Toronto city-wide revival stuff. And yet, I felt a growing passion to be a part of a movement that brings city-wide revival to Toronto, without anyone by my side to dream this God-given dream with. Then all of a sudden, the 1040 event comes. Wow.
This is like an RPG, but only better. For in RPG, one's experience is at most vicarious. But this is real life. It's realness is so real.
I don't even need to play RPGs anymore to get the effect. I just need to play the Game with Minutes. It as the added bonus of being intertwined with all my daily activities so I don't have to shirk any God-given responsibility. It's also free.
Game on!
It is weird. Yet not that weird, since we see a "divine conspiracy" going on in the book of Acts. That is, for the Jesus-follower (by that I mean someone who has practically made it their #1 goal in life to become an apprentice of Jesus) the miraculous should be normative.
Frank Laubach, when he played this game, he noticed that God was "melting away obstacles" and making the road before him ever so smooth.
I am experiencing something similar. It feels something analogous to Magneto from X-men walking on a metal path, having pieces of metal fly a few feet right in front of his feet to continually extend his path as he walks.
As I trace how God has specifically "engineered" this path of mine in the past two years, especially the past two months, I can't help but to feel that although the odds seem stacked against the soldiers of Christ, the deck of cards is rigged, so that when Christ the dealer deals the cards, it seems almost obvious that there is order and a design/plan in the midst of seeming chaos, just like a piece of jazz music which is a piece of harmonious chaos. It seems that someone has "monkeyed" with how things unfolded. Something, or Someone is behind the scenes invisibly manipulating things in front of the curtain.
I am reading a book called "Kingdom Triangle" by J.P. Moreland now. In it, his main thesis is that the early church miraculously expanded (against all odds) through 3 main reasons on the part of the responsibility of Christians. They follow as:
1) They had a thoughtful Christian mind that defended legitimate knowledge of God (and not just "blind faith") and they articulated this stuff (what we'd call "Christian worldview" nowadays) to non-Christians in a respectful yet persuasive manner.
2) They engaged in spiritual formation to Christlikeness to actually produce no-nonsense Christlikeness through die-hard discipleship.
3) They acted out of expectation for the miraculous supernatural acts of the Holy Spirit (stuff in line with the stuff we see in Acts).
J.P. Moreland says that all over the world right now, Christianity is growing at rapid/unprecedented rates. Unfortunately, North America seems to be an exception to this trend. He believes that the Church of Jesus needs to revive all 3 points of the "Kingdom Triangle" to bring out revival to the Church in North America. I find myself strongly agreeing with Moreland on this one (let alone a lot of other things. I really respect this guy).
One of the ways that I feel God has arranged things to help equip me to help bring out city-wide revival to Toronto is to be equipped in multiple facets of the Christian life and to be balanced in growth. Balanced growth in multiple dimensions of Christlikeness is a big thing for me now. I don't want to neglect any significant aspect of Christlikeness in my walk with God.
So, with respect to the Kingdom Triangle, I feel that in all my 5 years of undergrad in Toronto, I really focused on establishing a solid Christian worldview and was equipped in defending it against secularism/atheism. However, I wasn't really that hot on spiritual formation. Come these past two years on East Asia STINT. I REALLY grew a ton in spiritual formation. I still have a lot to learn, but I feel that I have steady ground for my feet to advance on.
As for the 3rd point of the triangle, I feel that I am relatively weak with respect to Charismatic gifts and powers of the Holy Spirit. This is partially due to me being a Baptist where this stuff is hardly ever practiced. I don't fully blame the denomination. I mean there are some grounds to be cautious on the abuses of Charismatic gifts as well as distortions of weird theology on it. However, I think it is wrong for people like myself to think just because it has been misused and abused, that it can't bring out significant advances for the Kingdom if used properly. Afterall, if one just reads 1 Corinthians 14, one cannot deny that Paul was very "charismatic" without any apology. I hear things about how the charismatic/pentecostal denominations helped bring about some revivals in the 20th century. I can sort of see why. These guys have passion. They have fuel. They got zeal. The body of Christ needs its adrenaline (with balanced proportion).
Come the last few weeks. Within the last few weeks, I have started to attend this charismatic church called lifesprings. Their theology seems pretty sound, I haven't head any heresy or anything, and Andrew Tam recommended it, and I trust Andrew. I have really started to get exposed to this charismatic stuff.
I volunteered to participate in a "prophetic ministry" session a couple nights ago where 3 people experienced with the gift of prophecy prophecied on me together (they do this in groups of 3 ppl exercising the gift so that there's some sort of group accountability and that if two or more ppl feel consensus from the Holy Spirit, there's a higher chance of avoiding error).
I was very surprised. In a good way. I've never been prophecied on. These guys were telling me what the Holy Spirit was telling them in a supernatural way! I just met them 5 minutes beforehand without any previous conversation, just sat in silence in front of these 3, and they started saying stuff that's been deeply etched in my heart for the past while! This stuff I hardly tell anyone (not due to fear, but b/c no one asks). It's crazy! They were saying stuff like "I feel that X and Y is true about you." and they were right! It was also beyond any vague unfalsifiable descriptions. They kept on hitting dead on like they were on fire like Kobe or something. It was a little surreal at first. I had so many "HOW THE HECK DID YOU KNOW THAT ABOUT ME?" I even started laughing (out of my heart's disbelief of how prophetic they were). Hopefully they didn't find it rude, I mean I wasn't laughing at them, I was just laughing at the fact that they were just so dead on. I wasn't afraid of any dangerous heresy or anything, for everything they said was in accord with biblical principles (I felt). I also had some pretty astonishing/surprising prophecy about my future and stuff. Sort of intimidating and exciting if its going to come true.
All this to say, I feel like ever since I started to play this game, in general, I feel like I just entered an RPG where I'm aprt of a storyline that is already planned ahead of time, where events follow an intended pre-meditated plan by a storywriter, and I'm just in for the ride. This is exciting. The past few weeks have especially been the case as I reflect on the recent order of events that have fallen on my lap, with various serendipitous random "helpings" from friends who "just so happened" to help things unfold in a pattern (the pattern I experienced lately has been strengthening the second point of the triangle [spiritual formation] as well as being introduced to the third in a charismatic community [lifespring]).
The crazy part too is that when I went to the 1040 event featuring Jaeson Ma a few nights ago, all that city-wide revival for Toronto stuff I felt that God had independently put on my heart while I seemed all alone in East Asia. I mean, this was during the past two years before I was exposed to any of this Toronto city-wide revival stuff. And yet, I felt a growing passion to be a part of a movement that brings city-wide revival to Toronto, without anyone by my side to dream this God-given dream with. Then all of a sudden, the 1040 event comes. Wow.
This is like an RPG, but only better. For in RPG, one's experience is at most vicarious. But this is real life. It's realness is so real.
I don't even need to play RPGs anymore to get the effect. I just need to play the Game with Minutes. It as the added bonus of being intertwined with all my daily activities so I don't have to shirk any God-given responsibility. It's also free.
Game on!
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